


The Bear and the Shooting Star

by La Reine Noire (lareinenoire)



Category: Henry VI - Shakespeare, Henry VI Part 2 - Shakespeare, Henry VI Part 3 - Shakespeare
Genre: Deeply dodgy politics, Gen, Portentous Heraldry, historiographical dodginess
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-09-07
Updated: 2010-09-07
Packaged: 2017-10-11 14:17:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,275
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/113285
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lareinenoire/pseuds/La%20Reine%20Noire
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John de Vere learns lessons in kingmaking and treason from the best.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Bear and the Shooting Star

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Gileonnen](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gileonnen/gifts).



> Originally written for [ThisEngland Third Annual Histories Ficathon](http://community.livejournal.com/thisengland/29325.html). Title comes from the badges worn respectively by Richard Neville, Earl of Warwick (the Bear and Ragged Staff) and John de Vere, Earl of Oxford (the Streaming Star). All usual disclaimers about Shakespeare's wibbly-wobbly-timey-wimey approach to historical dates and people apply. Thanks so, so much to angevin2 and rosamund for getting me to the end and beta-reading, and to Gileonnen for the brilliant prompt -- I hope I did it justice.

One would never fault Richard Neville for being difficult to find. A bright figure in the costliest velvets and brocades, he swept across King Henry's court with what seemed an interminable train of servingmen, petitioners, and petty followers. The gesture of one fur-trimmed arm conjured the finest wines and sweetmeats; one sharp word could reduce a practiced courtier to stammering. There was just something about him--a sort of withering confidence that drew men to the badge of the Bear and Ragged Staff like moths to candleflames.

 

John de Vere was no moth. But he could understand why they couldn't stay away.

 

"Proud as peacocks, those Nevilles," his father muttered at his elbow. "Too damned many of them if you ask me."

 

John's elder brother Aubrey hid his smirk behind a goblet of wine. "They're hand-in-glove with York and his brood. Can't say as I'm surprised."

 

"York?" John frowned. "The Regent of France?"

 

Aubrey all but choked on the sip he had just taken. "Regent! Tyrant, more like. He wants the kingdom for himself--"

 

"Hush!" John's father hissed. "The walls have ears at court, boy. Hold your tongue."

 

John was only half-listening for the doors on the far side of the hall had been flung open to admit Queen Margaret. There was a time not so long ago--or so his father had told him--when the grandest lady in court had been the Duchess of Gloucester, who had bewitched Good Duke Humphrey the Lord Protector first into marrying her and then--shamefully--plotting to steal the throne from his own nephew and rightful, anointed King.

 

Just earlier that day, the Duke had been forced before the entire court to resign his staff of office although even John's father had remarked in the safety of their own chambers that he did not believe him capable of treason. _The King, may God preserve him, is too easily led_. John, as he watched King Henry denounce his own beloved uncle with tears standing in his eyes, thanked God fervently that he had not been born of the blood royal.

 

Quite to his surprise, when he looked at the Queen, he realised she too had been crying.

 

"Guinevere weeps for Lancelot," he heard someone murmur from some distance behind him. When he turned, he found himself facing the Earl of Warwick. A secretive smile tugged at the elder's lips, as if John alone could hear him. "As treacherous as she is fair."

 

"You should not speak so of Her Grace," snapped John's father as John wondered briefly when his father had become so utterly dull. Always injunctions--never speak of this, do not mention that, as though innocent questions themselves were tainted if spoken aloud. All the court knew of Queen Margaret and her beloved Duke of Suffolk. Warwick spoke little more than the truth.

 

His smile now widened as he took in the disapproving scowl. "My lord of Oxford, you cannot possibly disagree with me."

 

"My lord of Warwick--" The title spat as though it were an epithet, and John could see Warwick's jaw tighten, "I am the King's sworn man, and an insult to Her Grace is an insult to him. You should bridle your tongue."

 

"Father," he heard himself speak aloud and froze in terror as all their eyes now fixed on him, "now is not the time to quarrel."

 

He did not dare look at his father or Aubrey, which left only Warwick, whose dark eyes snapped with well-hidden laughter. "Your youngest, Oxford?"

 

"My son John, yes," his father said tightly.

 

"How old are you, John?"

 

It was a simple question and yet John's tongue seemed glued in place. Finally, he croaked, "Fourteen, my lord."

 

"The same age as my lord of March. His Grace of York's eldest son," he added, no doubt for John's benefit, for his confusion must have shown bright as day. "He is not here at court, else I would introduce you. He and his brothers are at Ludlow Castle."

 

"I should like to meet him, my lord," John said, more because it was what he ought to say. He had no particular opinion on the subject of Edward of March or his family, but Warwick's smile assured him it was precisely the right answer.

 

***

 

It ought not to have surprised John that Warwick remembered him after that day. After all, the man was reputed for his memory--a memory devoted, according to John's father, to cataloguing other men's advantages for his own selfish gain. But surely there was nothing to be gained by cultivating a mere boy, or so John told himself.

 

"You cannot trust him, John," was Aubrey's contribution, his face pinched and sour. "The man would sell his own mother for advantage. Wouldn't surprise me if he already had."

 

"I'm not nearly as foolish as you seem to think me," John retorted. "King Henry's court is filled with such men." And women, he added silently, remembering the ghastly story of the Queen cradling dead Suffolk's head. He had not seen it himself, but the image was stamped in his mind nonetheless. That Suffolk had done Good Duke Humphrey to death seemed obvious, which immediately made one wonder how much beautiful Queen Margaret had known when she stood by his deathbed and pleaded for her lover.

 

He knew, of course, that the details Warwick had so carefully let slip were deliberately chosen, that the Earl was testing him every time they met. For what, he could not say. As for his father's insistence that the Duke of York had designs on the English throne--well, it would seem that his father believed every Prince of the Blood harboured those treasonous thoughts.

 

Not without reason, John reminded himself. His family had kept carefully aloof from the rising star of Lancaster, having been hopelessly entangled with dead King Richard--the king of whom nobody dared to speak these days.

 

Well, nobody except for Warwick and his new protégé, the eldest son of another Richard, Duke of York. Edward of March, whose lack of resemblance to his saturnine father led more than a few tongues to wag, studied John with the same feigned laziness Warwick affected. "I do know the name de Vere, coz," he said with a sudden grin. "There was a Robert once, was there not, who was greatly pitied of the King of England."

 

John's cheeks burned. "And made Duke of Ireland for his troubles before he lost his life, my lord. A pitiable end, indeed."

 

"'Tis dangerous to love a king too much. Or," he gestured vaguely toward the throne, "for a king to love too little."

 

He did not need to specify what he meant. Nor did John want to think too hard on the consequences of being beloved of a king. It was said that King Richard had demanded Robert de Vere's coffin be opened so he might see his favourite's face one final time, that all the world had thought him mad ever after. Small wonder that his family had kept quiet for all these years.

 

Edward had leant close to Warwick now, bright gold hair glinting against dark as they whispered, and John fought to look at something else, his thoughts full of dead kings and their dead lovers. It was, after all, a way for those not of the blood royal to ally themselves to the crown.

 

He pretended not to notice them watching him as he retreated to where his father and Aubrey waited near the dais. King Henry was most assuredly not Richard the Second. He wished he could find that comforting for the right reasons.

 

***

 

In the end, King Henry was more like Richard the Second than anyone could possibly have expected. Even if he needed no de Vere by his side to destroy himself.

 

Instead, he had the Duke of York, who claimed the throne in right of his long-dead namesake, and beside him, Warwick. And the de Veres stood aside, watching and waiting, Aubrey begging their father to come to the King's aid while John quietly wondered if perhaps the world was trying to balance itself again after that long-ago day when a subject had overthrown a King.

 

If that were the case, one had to question its methods. Fathers killing sons and sons killing fathers; the Queen herself plunging a dagger into the Duke of York and presenting his head to King Henry. Some said he wept; John believed it. But if there was something he was beginning to learn, it was that good men seldom made good kings.

 

***

 

He never expected to be on his knees before Warwick, but here he was. "Please, my lord. Will you not grant them mercy?"

 

Somewhere in the depths of Pontefract's dungeons--he did not wish to think on all the thousands of others who had died there--his father and Aubrey waited. Aubrey had finally won the argument and they had both taken to the field to defend King Henry's right. They had fought, and they had lost--lost even more catastrophically than anticipated, for the quondam King himself had fallen into the hands of his enemies.

 

"I beg you, my lord," he heard himself saying again, voice trembling. "We are loyal to the Crown, always have been--"

 

"That, I fear, is not enough." The odd note of sympathy in Warwick's voice was somehow worse than his earlier coldness. "Lancaster did not spare my father, nor the Duke of York, nor even his youngest son. How can you look at me now and ask for mercy for butchers?"

 

"But my father wasn't even _there_, my lord!"

 

"No, indeed. He was quite the tardy arrival. And," John could almost hear the narrowed eyes, for he was too frightened to look Warwick in the face, "he did not see fit to bring you to the field."

 

"I am old enough to choose for myself, my lord." He finally looked up, swallowing his fear. "I can only hope I have chosen aright."

 

Warwick studied him for a long moment before sighing. "I cannot spare traitors to the crown, John. Not in these days, not when the Queen stirs abroad. It is too dangerous."

 

John wondered if this was how it felt to be quartered alive. Numbly, he rose to his feet. "I thank you for your honesty, my lord."

 

It was only as he reached the door that Warwick called after him, "Where will you go, my lord of Oxford?"

 

His father's title. The title that ought to have been Aubrey's. John closed his eyes. "Wherever my fortune takes me, my lord of Warwick."

 

"Should I expect to see you in France, then?"

 

"Would you stop me if I said yes?"

 

"She will never win, John." Again, that awful pity. "She cannot."

 

John shrugged. "My family did always champion lost causes." Without waiting for a response, he left Pontefract and, rather to his own surprise, found a ship willing to carry him to Boulogne. As he watched the white cliffs recede, he could not help but wonder if he would ever understand the Earl of Warwick.

 

***

It did not seem possible that John's world could fracture further, that all he knew could be so overturned. And yet here he stood, watching the Earl of Warwick kneel before Queen Margaret and Prince Edward of Lancaster.

 

What surprised him further was that Warwick sought him out afterward. "You are right to suspect me, John."

 

"Am I?" he asked with a bark of laughter. "Her Grace the Queen does not, and she has more right than we all."

 

"She will seize on whatever shred of hope she can find."

 

"Do you still believe her cause is hopeless, then?" John demanded as he swung round to face the older man. "Will you couple your name to hers in spite of that? Or do you truly believe yourself a kingmaker, be damned to God's anointed?"

 

"God's wounds," Warwick murmured. "Have you learnt nothing from these wars, my lord of Oxford? Kings are men and moulded of faults, as we all are." John turned to stride away but the Earl grasped his sleeve. "You know this well, John de Vere. I know why you turned to Henry's side. I did not wish your father's death, or your brother's."

 

"And yet you were the cause."

 

"I was." Warwick's expression did not change. "We are what the world makes of us, John. I never claimed to be anything else."

 

"A selfish, hypocritical, traitorous--"

 

"Ah." At that, a smile broke across Warwick's face. "That, I fear, depends on one's definition of treason."

 

John could think of nothing to say to that, so he restricted himself to stalking away.

 

***

 

He remembered tales of the great battle in the North ten years ere this, when men had climbed over corpses piled ten high and the snow whirled madly until Lancaster's arrows turned back upon their archers. Squinting into thick, white clouds of fog, John began to think his cause unduly cursed. Perhaps Richard the Second had called down his vengeance after all, and England itself was rising against the house of Lancaster.

 

Warwick the Kingmaker was dead, as was his brother, cut down by one of John's own men after they had fatally mistook John's banner for that of Edward of York. The sun, it seemed, was no more than just another star.

 

"My lord!" It was Lord Beaumont at his side, grasping his arm. "For God's sake, fly! The day is lost!"

 

"The Queen--"

 

"Only God can help her now. For Warwick cannot any longer."

 

John crossed himself briefly. "So be it, then."

 

He was done with kings and their makers.


End file.
